A line of barefoot girls in headscarves and long patterned skirts carry large clay water jars on their backs past a brick wall. Newton & Co lantern slide no. 50 from the series "The Persians, Kurds, and Nestorians, their manners and customs", attributed by the Nelson Collection to Ernest Hoeltzer, late 19th century; published in The Living Races of Mankind (1901) as "Armenians water-carrying (Nestorians)" and by D'Allemagne (1911) as "Jeunes filles Nestoriennes faisant le métier de porteuses d'eau" (young Nestorian women working as water carriers).

Nestorian (Assyrian) girls carrying water jars

Two women stand side by side in long patterned robes, headbands and layered necklaces against a dark cloth. A glass lantern slide captioned "Chaldéennes de Mardin", from Fernand Grenard's 1902-1903 mission.

Two Chaldean women of Mardin

Franciscan sisters in white wimples with assistant teachers and girl pupils in local dress and headdresses, posed in rows at the Capuchin mission school in Mardin in 1904. The pupils were likely from Mardin's Syriac, Chaldean and Armenian Christian families.

Franciscan sisters, teachers and pupils of the mission school, Mardin

Two photographs on an album page: two armed men in fur-trimmed coats and turbans, and a woman with two girls in striped dress and coin jewellery. The caption reads "Chaldéens et Syriens de la province de Mardin"; photographed in 1904 by the Capuchin Brother Raphaël.

Chaldean and Syriac men, and a woman with children, of Mardin province

A large group of women and girls in embroidered dresses, headdresses and coin jewellery, posed in rows before a hanging cloth. The album caption reads "Syriennes et Chaldéennes de la province de Mardin"; photographed in 1904 by the Capuchin Brother Raphaël.

Syriac and Chaldean women and girls of Mardin province

Three men stand at a large hand-cranked printing press, one holding up a printed sheet, at the Presbyterian mission press in Urmia about 1900.

Assyrian printers at the mission press, Urmia, c. 1900

Eight Assyrian men from Hakkari in turbans, sashes and embroidered jackets pose indoors; two elders standing at the back wear fur-trimmed shoulder pieces. About 1900.

Hakkari Assyrian men, c. 1900

An Assyrian family stands in front of a two-storey dry-stone house with a timber roof, mountains rising behind, in Hakkari about 1900.

Assyrian family before a stone house in Hakkari, c. 1900

About twenty barefoot Assyrian boys and girls in long shirts, sashes and caps stand in a field before a poplar grove in a Hakkari village, about 1900.

Assyrian children in a remote village of Hakkari, c. 1900

A smiling nun in a dark headwrap stands beside a stone book rest holding an ornate metal gospel cover outside the west porch of the Church of the Virgin (El Adra) at Hah in Tur Abdin. Photographed by Gertrude Bell in May 1909.

Nun with a gospel at the Church of the Virgin, Hah, 1909

A bearded cleric in a black robe and cap stands in the west porch of the Church of the Virgin (Yoldath Aloho) at Hah in Tur Abdin, holding a metal-bound gospel beside a stone book rest. Photographed by Gertrude Bell in May 1909.

Priest holding a gospel at the Church of the Virgin, Hah, 1909

About sixty girls in headscarves sit and stand in rows with two male teachers and several women at the girls' school in Supurghan, a village of the Urmia plain, in 1904. Published in G. D. Malech's History of the Syrian Nation (1910).

Girls' school in Supurghan, Urmia, 1904

Stereograph of a bearded archbishop in a round hood and dark robes, wearing a large jewelled pectoral cross and encolpion, seated before a window; the card titles him "The Syrian Archbishop, head of the Syrian Christian Church of Palestine." The archbishop is not named.

The Syrian (Syriac Orthodox) archbishop in Palestine, about 1900

Full-length portrait of Mutrâv Paulus in embroidered vestments and mitre, holding a crozier and a small cross, standing on a striped rug before a dark backdrop. The plate, captioned "Mutrâv Paulus, Bishop of the Syrian Roman Catholic Church in Mosul", faces p. 192 of M. E. Hume-Griffith's Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia (1909); "Mutrâv" is likely a rendering of the Arabic title mutran (bishop).

Faces, places & memories of the Assyrian people.